The Dreadful Accident
by Yaolyn
Summary: All it took was one simple, accidental push in a crowded cafeteria and their friendship had been severed. Completely.


Dreadful, was all she had managed to name it.

Her blush, now having been pitied upon by the cold winter's air, had not disappeared since the incident. It had only been a little less than a second, but one that, from now on, would forever be engraved on one of the too dark walls of her soul. Written in painfully bright light. A reminder of how she would probably have one friend less on her already extremely short list of friends who she had gotten really close to. And all it took was one simple, accidental push in a crowded cafeteria and their friendship had been _severed_. Completely.

Keeping her mouth set in a straight line with lips a little too tightly pressed together, she decided to fool herself into thinking that the cars passing by were extremely interesting. In fact, they were so interesting that she decided to count them.

_An old dark blue car, probably belonging to a university student, 53. A sleek black Mercedes, 54. Hey, that's Shino, over there, crossing the street._

With a bored look on his face, the solitary student zigzagged through the busy traffic. His audience, consisting of his peers, was currently staring open mouthed across the street, apparently wondering how he had not been killed yet to this very day. She wondered about it too, sometimes.

When she felt a sharp black gaze running past her vision, nearly tangible in strength, from right beside her, she tore away her eyes and continued her car count, pretending everything was alright and no one else was around but her.

_A series of red cars, 59. _

She did not want to think of what had happened afterwards. After that push. What she had done was inexcusable. It wasn't like they could pretend it hadn't happened.

_Silver, green…yellow? 62. Red, 63._ _No, wait._ She followed the car speeding off to her right side, she even bent a little forward to see it better. _A mini van, back to 62._

But still red. Like the triangular markings on his face she happened to be staring at right this moment. His eyes shifted down to look at hers as his eyebrow arched upward and she nearly lost it. He was angry, she just knew he was! How could he not be, after what she had done? That was not what friends usually did! With her cheeks darkening even more she hastilly turned her head to watch the ground on her left side. It was all she could do without completely running away. Cars be damned. She had lost her precious friend today. And he was glaring at her, too.

Someone in their small crowd sighed and she was pretty sure Kiba shifted. He had probably moved away from her, doing her a favour, because she clearly wasn't even strong enough to step aside. They had been standing too close to each other anyway.

Inside her mind she was screaming loudly while going over and over the dreaded cafeteria scene in her head.

A familiar warmth touched the palm of her right hand before weaving its way through her fingers…and staying there. Had she mentioned it was really warm? Almost exactly like his…his…his…l-lips had been. Only less…less pressing…of course. Her eyes widened imperceptibly as dots of darkness swam through the world around her. Recognising the fainting signs, she started breathing more deeply, trying to relish the cold air, while her mind was a mess.

This could not be happening, why was he holding her hand? She watched the grey puddle of molten snow that rested against the sidewalk and stared it down as if it held all the answers in the world. _Was_ he even holding her hand? She was probably making things up to keep herself from fainting before she got home where only Hanabi might find out. _Maybe_ her hands had gotten used to the cold and were _so_ cold right now that the wind had actually started to feel warm. In that case, she really needed to get home, before she died of hypothermia. Her eyes slowly travelled to her right side with her head remained bowed down, embarassed. But the thick material of her light blue coat and his dark grey one was in her way and she still couldn't see anything!

She felt her hand being gently squeezed.

Her ears started ringing.

"H-Hinata!"

And then her body started feeling impossibly weightless and she imagined the snow filled sidewalk coming closer at an impossible rate.

But it never happened. Instead, some kind of magnificent force was keeping her body up straight and her head rested against something cool but soft.

It just wouldn't dawn in on her that Kiba was practically clinging to her. That is, until Shino's hand shot out to pull at the collar of Kiba's coat to keep the two from really falling over – Hinata wasn't heavy, Kiba just hadn't thought it through – and automatically made it so that Hinata was the one leaning on Kiba. To the onlooker it seemed like the two were just hugging, albeit rather abruptly. It wouldn't be until a week later that they would find out that Ino had snapped a shot with her camera phone from the other side of the road. For safe keeping.

Thoughts ran wild through Hinata's mind and she suddenly pushed away from him, appologising profusely. Not once did she realise that the bus had long ago stopped by and everyone had already left, along with Shino who had been pulled along by a giggling Ino and Sakura.

This brought an increasingly growing smirk on Kiba's face. He bent down at her eye level and after the firth "I'm sorry" he kissed her softly on her lips, effectively silencing her. "It's fine, Hinata."

The pale eyed girl openly gapped at him, wondering if he had really kissed her, or if it had yet again been an other figment of her imagination. But her lips still tingled. Absentmindedly, in very girly way, she felt like touched them with her finger – but she didn't, mind you - while staring at Kiba's chest. Wait a minute. This meant that she _hadn't_ lost him yet! Right?

"I'm not going anywhere, you hear me," he told her with a stern voice.

Still with the imaginary finger at her lips, she realised she actually liked it when he kissed her.

"You skipped lunch today, haven't you?"

"…I'm sorry."

Kiba rolled his eyes, "come on then, let's get some food in your stomach." And then he proceeded to pull Hinata away from the bus stop, holding her hand as if it were the most normal thing in the world.


End file.
